Wool-washing machine



3 Sheets-Sheet 1.

(N0 Model.) l K F. G. 8v A. C. SARGENT. 5 WOOL WASHING MACHINE. No. 569,980. Patented 0012.20, 1896.

INVENTORS WlTh lESSES. I QT S W M 6 5W 0%5 3 Sheets-Sheet 2.

(No Model.)

F. G. 81; A. G. SARGENT. WOOL WASHING MACHINE.

No. 569,980. Patented Oct. 20, 1896.

Q7 mTORS m a m2, \3031 W WITNESSES.

(No Model.) 3 ShSetsSheet a.

F. G. & A. G. SARGENT.

WOOL WASHING MACHINE.

No. 569.980. Patented 009.20, 1896.

WITNESSES. lNvENTogS Y 61m A g akfiazamm 99M S UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

FREDERIGKGRANDERSON SARGENT AND ALLAN C. SARGENT, OF GRANITEVILLE, MASSACHUSETTS.

WOOL- WASVHIN,G MIACHINE.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 569,9 80,dated October 20, 1896.

Application filed March 6,1894;

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that we, FREDERICK GRANDER- SON SARGENT and ALLAN O. Smaennnof Graniteville, in the county of Middlesex and State of Massachusetts, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Wool-Washing Machines, of which the following is a specification. 7

Our invention relates to machines for washing wool and similar fibers; and it consists in certain new and improved arrangements and combination of certain parts of the same, substantially as hereinafter described and claimed. 7

In the drawings, Figure 1 is a side View of a wool-washing machine provided with one form of our improvement. Fig. 2 is a side view showing a different arrangement of the counterbalancing mechanism and having the driving mechanism broken away in partsso as to show its manner of working more clearly. Fig. 3 is a side View showing another arrangement of the counterbalancin g mechanism and omitting the gear-wheel and pulley of the driving mechanism. Fig. 4. is a side view of a part .of a fiber-washing machine, showing our improvement attached to a fiber-washer of the usual pattern. Fig. 5 is a longitudinal section of the slotted standard of Fig. 4. Fig. 6 is a lateral section of the sliding pin and its attachments of Fig. 4. Fig. 7 is a top plan it and is carried in bearings.

view of the arrangement shown in Fig. 1.

1 is the bowl of the washer.

2 is a portion of the casting holding the press-rolls, which are not here shown, being of the ordinary pattern.

3 is a portion of the castingbearing the feedin mechanism; also not shown for the same reason.

4 is the harrow, of the ordinary type, with teeth 5 5, projecting from cross-bars 6 6.

7 is one of two rocker-arms, both being shown in Fig. 7, one for each side of the machine, and being attached to the end of a shaft 8, which runs across the machine underneath These rockerarms are attached at their upper ends to a Serial No. 502,539. (No model.)

carrier 9, whose motion is thereby limited to the arc of a circle whose center is the pivot 8.

The bottom of the bowl at the feed-out end rises conveXly, so as to conform to the motion of the carrier 9, the carrier thus keeping practically at the same distance from it throughout its path.

10 is one of the side plates on each side of the convex part of the bottom of the bowl, being placed there to hold in the liquid and fiber as they are borne along by the carrier 9.

The carrier is reciprocat-ed by means of the pitman 11, pivoted at one end to the carrier and at the other to the crank 12, which is attached to the end of a shaft 13, mounted'in a bearing on the side of the bowl. ()n the outer end of this shaft is a gear-wheel 14, which meshes with a gear-wheel on a shaft 16, journaled at one end in the frame of the machine and at the other in a bracket 17, riveted to the side of the machine. shaft is also the gear-wheel 18, which meshes with the gear-wheel19, which is on the outer end of a shaft 20, journaled in the side of the frame of the machine and extending inward to the center of the bowl, where it terminates in a crank 21. The'crank-pin 22 of this crank is journaled in a bearing in a standard 23, rigidly attached to the harrow 4.. The crank 21 and crank 12 are driven by means of a belt running over the pulley 24: on the shaft 16, both revolving the opposite way from the hands of a watch, as shown by the arrows in Fig. 1. 25 is a loose pulley for the purpose of shifting the belt when the machine is not running.

In Figs. 1 and 7, 26 26 are standards attached to the side of the machine and having shafts 27 27, journaled in their upper ends,

extending across the bowl from side to side. Over the center of the bowl there are attached to these shafts arms 28 28, weighted with weights 29 29. From each shaft near each side of the bowl project the arms 30 30, whose outer ends are connected by links 31 with the harrow. The arms 28 and arms 30 constitute, therefore, in efiectga lever pivoted On this latter at or near its center, and the weights 29 counterbalance the harrow. About at right angles to the arms 30 the arms 32 project from the shaft 27 and are connected by the rods 33 in such a way that the shafts 27 must move in unison, and therefore whatever motion is imparted to one end of the harrow is transmitted through the connecting-rod 33 to its other end.

In Fig. 2 the arrangement is changed by pivoting the arms 28, 30, and 32 to studs 50 50, projecting from the side of the bowl, but these arms are still rigidly attached to one another, so that the arms 28 and 30 still form a lever and the connecting-rod 33 still compels the two counterbalancing mechanisms to move in unison. In this case the harrow is supported from below by the link 31 in place of being suspended from links 31 31, as in Fig. 1.

In Fig. 3 the construction differs from that shown in Fig. 1 both in respect to the suspension of the harrow from the arm 30 and in the attachment of the weight to the arm 28. The arm 30 is enlarged at its end and curved in the arc of a circle struck from the shaft 27 as a center. These curved portions are grooved, so as to receive the chains 60, which are fastened at their lower ends 61 61 to the harrow and at their upper-ends to the upper part of the grooves in the ends of the arms 30 30. Thus, howevermuch the arms 30 30 may oscillate, the chains will act at the same distance from the shaft 27, and this avoids any possible defect in the arrange- I ment of Fig. 1, where the harrow bears with different intensities upon the shaft 27, according as the arm 30 is horizontal or is oblique. The arrangement in Fig. 3 of the weights 90 90 is for the same purpose, the end of the arm 28 being formed in the shape of an arc struck from. shaft 27, and the weight being suspended by a strap 91, which passes over this curved surface and is fastened to the arm 28 by a screw or rivet 92.

It will be seen that in either of the three modes of construction described the harrow is compelled to keep a horizontal position by the action of the connecting-rod 33, and as this is the case the motion imparted to one point of the harrow by the crank 21 is imparted thereby to every individual point throughout the whole harrow. Each tooth of the harrow will therefore describe a circle, entering the liquid in the bowl at about the position shown in Fig. 3, moving obliquely downward and forward, then upward and forward during the first half of the revolution of the crank, and moving obliquely upward and backward, lifting clear of the liquid, and downward and backward to the level of the liquid again during the second half of the revolution of the crank.

In F. G. Sargents patent, No. 507,333, dated October 24, 1893, is described a fiber-washing machine wherein the harrow had a different motion imparted to it, moving backward in a semicircle while clear of the liquid, as in the present case, but moving forward not in a semicircle but in a straight line during the rest of its course. That kind of motion is well adapted for use where we wish to convey the fiber through the bowl slowly, giving it time to soak out all impurities, but when we wish rather to souse and scrub the fiber than merely to soak it we find that the mechanism necessary to produce that motion cannot be run fast enough and at the same time run smoothly. At the point in the path of the harrow where the semicircular motion changes to the straight-line forward motion the harrow must make an abrupt angle in its course, and if it is run very fast there will be a jar at each of these angles, which would soon wear the machine out; but by our present device every point of the harrow, as before described,traces a circle, and the harrow can be speeded up to almost any degree without losing the smoothness of operation which is necessary. As the harrow is run rapidly its oblique descent into the fiber souses it under the surface of the liquid and its oblique ascent tends to lift the fiber above the surface of the liquid, thus insuring complete shaking up and scrubbing of the fiber.

We are enabled to apply this device to the arrangement described in the patent above mentioned, as shown in Figs. 4, 5, and 6. In Fig. 4', 80 is a slot in the standard 123, in which the crank-pin 22 of crank 21 is free to move. To this crank-pin is also pivoted a pitman 81, pivoted at its other end to the pivot 82 of harrow 4. 83 83 are blocks attached to the side rails of the harrow, and 84 is a strap attached to these blocks so as to form between itself and the side rail of the harrow a slot, in which moves the cross-rod 85. lhis cross-rod may have a rolling sleeve upon it for the strap 84 to ride upon, as described in the Patent No. 507,333, page 1, lines to of the specification, or it may have only a square block 86 attached to it, which shall fit closely in the slot, as shown in Fig. 6. The harrow is supported by a swinging arm 87, pivoted at 88 to the side of the bowl and to the cross-rod at its other end, and by the rod 89, which is supported by suitable counterbalancing mechanism, such, for instance, as the mechanism shown in Fig. 2.

In order to make the standard 123 as shown in Fig. 4 equivalent to the standard shown in Figs. 1, 2, and 3, we introduce a block 70 into the slot 80 and secure it by the bolt 71, pass ing through the block and standard. The block is so shaped as to leave only a circular hole through the standard instead of the slot, and the pitman 81 will now have no efiect except to strengthen the connection of the standard 123 with the harrow. As this block is readily removable, it constitutes a simple means of making the machine convertible, either from a distinctively soaking machine into a distinctively scouring machine, or Vice block adapted when inserted in the slot to versa. prevent said sliding.

isivhat we claim as new and of our invention FREDERICK GRANDERSON SARGENT.

The combination of a ham-0w, means for ALLAN SARGENT' supporting the same, a slotted standard atlVitnesses:

taohed to the harrow, a crank whose pin is WM. R. JOHNSON,

free to slide in the slot, and a removable \VM. H. G. WIGHT. 

